Unjustified complaints about delays in the approval process of the controversial Roodefontein golf estate development made former Western Cape environmental director Ingrid Coetzee feel like she was being blackmailed.
So she told the Bellville Regional Court on Wednesday, where former Western Cape premier Peter Marais and his former environmental minister, David Malatsi, are on trial on two counts of corruption involving R400 000.
Malatsi alone faces four additional charges unrelated to Roodefontein — a fraud charge involving an alleged false expense claim and three charges relating to the alleged theft of money from the coffers of the New National Party.
Coetzee, who now holds a similar post with the Mpumalanga province, was under cross-examination for the second day running by Marais’s defence counsel, Craig Webster.
She said unjustified complaints from those involved in the Plettenberg Bay development made her feel that she and her subordinates were to blame for the delays, by holding back the development over silly issues.
Webster said the Roodefontein developer, Italian Count Riccardo Agusta, had been poised to invest R500-million in the project, which would have been of vast benefit to the community in every sense.
He added: ”Nineteen months down the line, there was a battle with the provincial government over procedures, to the extent that the developer considered pulling out — is that not an appalling state of affairs?”
Coetzee replied: ”It was not like that at all. There was insufficient information on record from the developers and the information on record was inadequate.”
Webster suggested that Coetzee had ”very little to say” at high-powered meetings about delays in the approval processes and that she had a poor recollection of details about the meetings.
She replied: ”Whether I sat at these meetings with my legs crossed, or faced those at the meeting who had complained, or who spoke first, was not important to me.
”The important thing was that I noted and remembered what was of significance. I think for someone [myself] who has since moved on, and done a hell of a lot of things since the Roodefontein controversy, I remember exceptionally well what happened at the meetings.”
Webster suggested Coetzee had delayed the approval of Roodefontein by persistently raising silly issues in a bureaucratic manner.
She said issues she had raised were significant and not bureaucratic, and were in accordance with the criteria she had to consider.
She added: ”I have tried to explain why the correct procedures are so important. I did not have sufficient information about Roodefontein to even start considering it for approval or otherwise.”
She said Marais had remarked at one of the high-powered meetings that a balanced approach to developments was necessary.
She added: ”This remark reflected badly on me and the staff — it looked like we were incompetent in that we had not responded to the Roodefontein application, whereas there was in fact no record of this particular application.” — Sapa